What do you associate to the Stardust-Return? Posted on: Mon Jan 16, 2006 8:51 am

When I saw it in TV yestserday evening I felt reminded to NOMAD - the probe which is subject to an episode of Start Trek. It's because of the very large distance Stardust has gone to and returned back to Earth from and because it brought something from there. ...

I associate it with a fact that has been slowly sinking into my head for the last decade or so, and that is that the Earth is not a closed ecosystem. The fact that we are being constantly bombarded by cometary particles and the effects this has on our environment makes me wonder: How much do we know about these effects? What other extra-terrestrial phenomena are we affected by? I imagine we have a lot to learn about this, or else they wouldn't want to study it so much.